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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
BOKERS BREND TACTICAL FOLDERS
- Thread starter STRIC9
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 8, 1999
- Messages
- 673
I have handled several of them at gun shows and all seem sub standered for Boaker's,all of them without fail upon deploying the blade rubbed the liner,most had blade play,lock up seemed ok but this knife is not what I expected coming from a company such as Boaker.
Kevin
Kevin
- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
- Messages
- 1,874
Here's a review I posted last year:
-----------------------------------------
OK - the critical eye is on...
The first thing you notice is the heft. Nice solid feel to it. The G-10 scales have a good grippy finish to them. The Ti bolsters are angled - a nice touch. There is a noticable difference in the thickness of the scales and bolsters. There is a pretty good "step" where the bolsters and scales meet. This, combined with an extremely tight clip and the grippy G-10, can make unclipping the knife from your pocket a chore. The Boker shield is glued/epoxied into the non-clip side of the knife. The shield on my knife does not sit evenly into the scale.
The clip is a fairly standard Benchmade/Spyderco job with one major exception - there are only two screws. There appears to be room for a third screw, so I don't know why they didn't add one. The clip screws are Phillips head instead of the usual Torx. The clip is mounted high for deep pocket carry.
The dual thumb studs are very nicely done. They are big and have that William Henry Spirograph-type texture on them. These are some of the best studs on the market IMO.
The blade is centered when closed and has no side-to-side play. The back is an open design, whick IMHO is very nice. The edges where the scales and liners meet are even all the way around. However, the seams where the bolsters and liners meet are not finished well. It appears that there may be several places where these areas have been soldered, then ground down to create a seamless joint. This *may* simply be areas where they ground them without soldering, but whatever they did here created very uneven finish work. These outside seams show gaps in places and seamless appearances in others. My biggest problem is on the inside edge of the liners. All the way around the knife this edge is very sharp. I feel sure that if I slide my finger down this edge that I would get cut. I *will* be taking the dremel to these edges.
Opening the knife is a pleasure. The detent is decent. The opening/closing action is one of the smoothest I've ever felt out of a production knife. When open, there is no side-to-side blade play. There is, however, some up-and-down play. Using my fingernail, I can pull the locking liner over to the right just a little more which, when held in place, results in a good lockup. However, once I release the liner it goes back to the left leaving the vertical blade play. I suppose that taking the knife apart and bending the liner more to the right would fix this, but I would rather not do that.
The blade itself is very nicely done. I like the design. The grind lines are all even. The satin finish is very nice. I also like the Brend logo. There is a slight recurve to the cutting edge. The edge bevels are even, but it didn't come as sharp as I would expect out of the box.
I like the new low-priced custom collaborations that the manufacturers are now producing. The CRKT Carson M-16's are extremely nice. I'm also eagerly awaiting the Outdoor Edge Magnas - Kit's Model 4 designs. A few months ago, I might have resigned myself to the fact that for the price (I paid $68 for the Boker), these shortcomings in the finishing touches were acceptable. However, having had the CRKT M16-03 for a few months has changed my thinking. The fit, finish, and execution of these Carson models are exceptional. I paid only $45 for my M16, and with the exception of the bead blasted blade finish, it far surpasses the Boker Brend in every single way. I may be disappointed in the future, but every one of these custom collaberations are going to have to at least come close to the CRKT/Carson models in the price/finish/performance categories to satisfy me. If Kit and CRKT can do it, others can too. Boker and Brend did not do it with this knife.
------------------
Kelly
SenatorsPlace.com
AKTI Member #A000289
Deo Vindice
-----------------------------------------
OK - the critical eye is on...
The first thing you notice is the heft. Nice solid feel to it. The G-10 scales have a good grippy finish to them. The Ti bolsters are angled - a nice touch. There is a noticable difference in the thickness of the scales and bolsters. There is a pretty good "step" where the bolsters and scales meet. This, combined with an extremely tight clip and the grippy G-10, can make unclipping the knife from your pocket a chore. The Boker shield is glued/epoxied into the non-clip side of the knife. The shield on my knife does not sit evenly into the scale.
The clip is a fairly standard Benchmade/Spyderco job with one major exception - there are only two screws. There appears to be room for a third screw, so I don't know why they didn't add one. The clip screws are Phillips head instead of the usual Torx. The clip is mounted high for deep pocket carry.
The dual thumb studs are very nicely done. They are big and have that William Henry Spirograph-type texture on them. These are some of the best studs on the market IMO.
The blade is centered when closed and has no side-to-side play. The back is an open design, whick IMHO is very nice. The edges where the scales and liners meet are even all the way around. However, the seams where the bolsters and liners meet are not finished well. It appears that there may be several places where these areas have been soldered, then ground down to create a seamless joint. This *may* simply be areas where they ground them without soldering, but whatever they did here created very uneven finish work. These outside seams show gaps in places and seamless appearances in others. My biggest problem is on the inside edge of the liners. All the way around the knife this edge is very sharp. I feel sure that if I slide my finger down this edge that I would get cut. I *will* be taking the dremel to these edges.
Opening the knife is a pleasure. The detent is decent. The opening/closing action is one of the smoothest I've ever felt out of a production knife. When open, there is no side-to-side blade play. There is, however, some up-and-down play. Using my fingernail, I can pull the locking liner over to the right just a little more which, when held in place, results in a good lockup. However, once I release the liner it goes back to the left leaving the vertical blade play. I suppose that taking the knife apart and bending the liner more to the right would fix this, but I would rather not do that.
The blade itself is very nicely done. I like the design. The grind lines are all even. The satin finish is very nice. I also like the Brend logo. There is a slight recurve to the cutting edge. The edge bevels are even, but it didn't come as sharp as I would expect out of the box.
I like the new low-priced custom collaborations that the manufacturers are now producing. The CRKT Carson M-16's are extremely nice. I'm also eagerly awaiting the Outdoor Edge Magnas - Kit's Model 4 designs. A few months ago, I might have resigned myself to the fact that for the price (I paid $68 for the Boker), these shortcomings in the finishing touches were acceptable. However, having had the CRKT M16-03 for a few months has changed my thinking. The fit, finish, and execution of these Carson models are exceptional. I paid only $45 for my M16, and with the exception of the bead blasted blade finish, it far surpasses the Boker Brend in every single way. I may be disappointed in the future, but every one of these custom collaberations are going to have to at least come close to the CRKT/Carson models in the price/finish/performance categories to satisfy me. If Kit and CRKT can do it, others can too. Boker and Brend did not do it with this knife.
------------------
Kelly
SenatorsPlace.com
AKTI Member #A000289
Deo Vindice